Out with the old and in with the new.

I did it. I finally did it. Got my birthday money and gathered up allllll my other video games, and got myself a ps4. This thing is amazing! I even got a few games!

Rayman Legends;
Absolutely amazing platformer! There is SO MUCH STUFF to collect. THe challenges are fun, and the co-op is fantastic. My wife loves it, my kids love it, and I love it. It's the perfect game for the whole family to play alone or together! The Origins levels are an insane surprise!

CoD Ghosts;
More of the same for CoD. Black Ops 2 really was better. Can't wait for Advanced Warfare though. Spacey!

MLB 14 The Show;
Great baseball times of course. Just as much fun as 13 was and the graphics are gorgeous.

Really need to get Rayman Legends. I've been putting it off because I know there will eventually be either an insane price reduction or it'll be free.

Ghosts grows on you. You're right that Black Ops II was better but the campaign in Ghosts is better and I've grown to really like the multiplayer over time. Extinction is a total blast too (really challenging).

Congrats on joining this generation of consoles!

edit: Make sure you play Ghosts until at least the level where you have to go underwater to plant something on the bottom of a ship. That level is the best in the game.

I was just looking at my PS4 last night, thinking that it was the biggest waste of money in my entire life barring that time I bought a turquoise Saturn two-door that was a total lemon.

The most I've turned it on has been for the MGS thing, and that was for like three hours. All of the big AAA stuff I rented lasted about 20 minutes a piece before I quit them. The indie stuff...meh. I haven't tried Transistor yet, it looks OK.

Thing is, there is virtually nothing immediately on the horizon that looks worthwhile. Project Beast or whatever it winds up being called, that weird Capcom dungeon game, Last Guardian...all unknowns right now.

MGS5 is literally the only thing keeping me from selling this $400 doorstop. I don't own a single game for it other than Resogun, which was free. I don't even use the blu-Ray player, I still turn on the PS3 almost every day for something.

I know it's early, but this console generation, for me at least, is shaping up to be a non-starter.

Except for the Wii U, which is played and loved daily in this house.

But good luck, enjoy it!

Barnes, you were an early adopter (like me) of the new generation of consoles. Give it a year before you know how you feel about the PS4. E3 is this weekend I think so we should see some good stuff hopefully on the horizon.

Now hurry up and get your Barnestorming article up. I need my fix.

But we already know most of what's coming to E3, it's not like there's ever really any big surprises there anymore. Biggest game of E3 is going to be Witcher 3 as far as I'm concerned, which is actually another reason to hold on to the PS4, and Monster Hunter 4 for the 3DS. And that weird Koei Zelda battle game.

Thing is, AAA studios are completely clueless and in traction right now which is why EVERYTHING is getting delayed, pushed back or otherwise held. They don't known what to do because they've lost so much ground and nobody is really pushing the next-gen envelope yet. The annual stuff is selling less year over year.

But Temple Run has reached over A BILLION downloads. A BILLION DOWNLOADS. This makes a $60 console title that cost $10 million to make and market, only to sell 1-2 million copies look pretty fucking insignificant.

I think the big AAA houses are really kind of at a loss as to how to proceeed this generation...they can't rely on the big bank shooters now, the people playing those have either moved on or lost interest at this point. FIFA is about all EA has that is easy money, and that's because it's a game about the most popular and played sport in the world more than anything to do with the game itself.

There's all this supposed horsepower behind the PS4, but many, many gamers would rather play games with blocky 16 bit graphics and simpler arcade style gameplay. Or more complex and detailed PC games that aren't really suited for consoles. Or mobile games.

I think this is it for consoles. Early adopter or not, we're almost through the third quarter that these consoles have been available and there has been NOTHING of note, regardless of how hyped Titanfall was.

The game I've seen this year to get the most attention and traction...Mario Kart 8.

Anyway, to accentuate the positive...Rayman Legends is extraordinary, you couldn't have picked a better game for the PS4 or any other console. So much content, so much heart and soul in that game.

Are you sure the big bank shooter crowd have moved on? Ghosts still sold almost 15 million copies.

I agree that the gamescape is changing and mobile is where its at. I think we'll see more free or super cheap games with micro-transactions and all this.

I don't think gaming studios will take as many risks. We'll still see the safe franchises pumping out huge sales but I don't think there is much room for innovation for big expensive releases.

Yeah, but that's like a 10 million unit dropoff from MW3- which released just three years ago. And even if it somehow manages to cover that 10 million differential, you're still NOWHERE near A BILLION DOWNLOADS. Think about it. if even HALF of the Temple Run downloads either were bought for a dollar or result in a single one dollar IAP purchase, that is still $500 million in revenue generated.

Ghosts was also the lowest rated Call of Duty game (I think) ever released...with a general consensus among reviewers and players that it really had nothing new to offer.

The really competitive players, the eSports crowd and whatnot...they're all up into MOBAs now.

So I think the writing is on the wall, the era of the big budget, blockbuster military shooter is heading the way of Tony Hawk games and plastic instruments. I'm not sure that the AAA houses have an exit strategy in place other than to wallow in open world crap, which is likewise about to crash IMO.

The question is if indie games and smaller developments, in this day and age, can buoy corporate consoles. Thing is, it used to be like that by default. Don't know if we can really get back to that.

Battlefield 3 is the best MOBA of all time. That is, until I play Battlefield 4.

QPCloudy wrote: I did it. I finally did it. Got my birthday money and gathered up allllll my other video games, and got myself a ps4. This thing is amazing! I even got a few games!

Rayman Legends;
Absolutely amazing platformer! There is SO MUCH STUFF to collect. THe challenges are fun, and the co-op is fantastic. My wife loves it, my kids love it, and I love it. It's the perfect game for the whole family to play alone or together! The Origins levels are an insane surprise!

CoD Ghosts;
More of the same for CoD. Black Ops 2 really was better. Can't wait for Advanced Warfare though. Spacey!

MLB 14 The Show;
Great baseball times of course. Just as much fun as 13 was and the graphics are gorgeous.

You are a total console whore.

Is there any fucking console that you haven't had wet dreams about and then sold the baby to buy it?

Lol. Admittedly I have gone through the whole selling of things to buy something else routine. However, the Playstation is a staple in the house. It's used for netflix, blu-ray (we don't have cable), and gaming. It's the one console that does not get sold. This is just an upgrade to our permanent fixture.


Barnes; I agree about the big AAA titles falling away a bit. It's all a bit ssdd at this point. However, I'm still super interested in Advanced Warfare if for nothing else than Spacey. Also, Part of me really wants to try ESO in December when it finally comes to consoles, but as a married man and by that time having a new infant in the house, I doubt I'll have the time to put into an mmo. You're right, though, other than those two games, Wolfenstein is the only other game I want to play.

Michael Barnes wrote: Yeah, but that's like a 10 million unit dropoff from MW3- which released just three years ago. And even if it somehow manages to cover that 10 million differential, you're still NOWHERE near A BILLION DOWNLOADS. Think about it. if even HALF of the Temple Run downloads either were bought for a dollar or result in a single one dollar IAP purchase, that is still $500 million in revenue generated.

Ghosts was also the lowest rated Call of Duty game (I think) ever released...with a general consensus among reviewers and players that it really had nothing new to offer.

The really competitive players, the eSports crowd and whatnot...they're all up into MOBAs now.

.

First of all, good discussion.

Where are you getting that the really competitive players are into MOBAs? The biggest prize pools are still for Call of Duty. It's what the top teams are still scrimming all the time.

I agree that Ghosts had bad reviews (worst since World at War). You're comparing the sales to MW3 but you should be comparing it to last year's Black Ops II which sold more than 24 million copies and was only a year ago. The timing of the Ghosts release is what killed it. It came out before the new consoles were out so people were waiting and eventually by the time they were ready to buy it, it was no longer being hyped like Titanfall and other games. Also the latest Battlefield does a better job at taking advantage of the new hardware.

You say that the AAA studios don't understand this new gaming reality but do you? You say that if Temple Run had cost a dollar, it would have made a fortune but that's showing a fundamental misunderstanding of the mobile game market. If it had cost a dollar, it would have sold 100,000 copies maybe. It gets a billion downloads because it became a freemium game (they switched it to this after initially pricing it at 0.99$ because sales were lacklustre. It is a perfect free game for what you get. It wouldn't sell at a dollar cuz it's just not good enough.

I still agree that the AAA studios don't 'get it.' They see that freemium works so both Call of Duty and especially Assassin's Creed have a ton of microtransactions but they still cost full price to buy the base game! These greedy bastards want their cake and to eat it too.

Anyway we'll know the real deal of where the shooter market is at after this year's Advanced Warfare it out, now that people have their consoles and will react to a new game release properly. I have a feeling it and the eventual Half-Life 3 will sell like crazy.

That's not to say the game environment is not changing. It's just that SOME franchises are protected because of industry support and a loyal fanbase.

Michael Barnes wrote: So I think the writing is on the wall, the era of the big budget, blockbuster military shooter is heading the way of Tony Hawk games and plastic instruments. I'm not sure that the AAA houses have an exit strategy in place other than to wallow in open world crap, which is likewise about to crash IMO.

Normally I roll my eyes about your videogame industry prognostications, but in this case I think you're right. I think there's MODERN MILITARY shooter fatigue, even among regular bros. I don't think it's indicative of shooter popularity plummeting, though, just this type of them is played out.

There will always be an over-saturated type of game out there. Games cost so much fucking money to make now; nobody can afford to drop a hundred mil into a concept that isn't proven. Cheaper games and indies will test new concepts, but big budgets go towards things that will sell. Until that fateful day when a massive budget game flops like a sack of shit, and that's starting to happen to companies like Square.

I don't think open world games are going anywhere, because it's not a genre as much as it is a design structure. You can have an open world platformers, racing games, RPGs or shooters. These will stick around, but I'd be surprised if shooters aren't replaced by something else within the next five years.